Post subject: Did Dark Horse Comics Rip Off Pendragon's WAR OF THE WORLDS?

Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2006 5:33 pm

Martian War Lord

Joined: Wed Jan 12, 2005 7:01 pmPosts: 1259Location: UK

SEATTLE, July 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Pendragon Pictures has given formal legal notice to the principals of Dark Horse Comics alleging innumerable replications of images from Pendragon's period accurate movie version of THE WAR OF THE WORLDS. Pendragon's movie, H.G. WELLS' THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, was released in the U.S., Canada and most countries internationally June 7, 2005 and has grossed over two million dollars in sales from U.S. retail stores alone. The complaint accuses Dark Horse, the third-largest comic book publisher in the U.S. and recognized world-leading publisher of licensed comics material, of directly replicating hundreds of images from the Pendragon movie. Both productions are based on the public domain 1898 H. G. Wells novel, but Pendragon alleges that Dark Horse has played foul in replicating camera angles, designs, character likenesses and a myriad of artistic choices for their comic.Pendragon C.E.O. and Director of H.G. WELLS' THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, Timothy Hines states, "Most of Dark Horse's revenue comes from comics that are based on licensed movies, including BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, SHREK, STAR WARS and ALIEN. These guys are experts at converting film frames into comic books. I was astounded at the degree of similarity between our production and their comic book which came out a year after our movie was disseminated worldwide. We believe its just theft of our artist's hard work -- plain and simple, and we won't let this stand. I invite the public to come to a website we've set up, http://www.martianinvaders.com , showing dozens of frames of identical or of striking similarity between Dark Horse's comic and our WAR OF THE WORLDS and decide for themselves."

Pendragon Producer Susan Goforth adds, "We've set up a way for people to vote as to whether or not they see what many who have brought this to our attention see. If Dark Horse wanted to use our images they simply could have licensed our movie. It was hard enough going up against Spielberg and Tom Cruise. It's no surprise that our movie was savaged by the friends and allies of our competitors. Our own distributor was intimidated into not releasing the director's cut of our film, which is actually the final cut, for fear of retaliation from Paramount, so we are just now releasing it ourselves online. Why a giant like Dark Horse would copy us without license is beyond me."

Dark Horse just promoted its comic book version of WAR OF THE WORLDS at Comic-Con San Diego, which ran July 20-23. Comic-Con is the largest comic book convention in the U.S., and was attended by all the major movie studios and comic book publishers. Pendragon Pictures is selling its true to the book movie version of H. G. WELLS' THE WAR OF THE WORLDS online through http://www.buywowdvd.com .

ABOUT PENDRAGON PICTURES: Pendragon Pictures is an independent motion picture and distribution company who's primary product is a movie adaptation of H.G. WELLS' THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (http://www.pendragonpictures.com/WOTWKEY.html ). Unlike the updated and reset Spielberg/Cruise version of a similar title, Pendragon's WORLDS is a dead-on to the book accurate adaptation. Through retail outlets in Canada, U.S., Japan and Australia, and from internet sales, Pendragon's H.G. WELLS' THE WAR OF THE WORLDS has grossed several million dollars. Pendragon's next production is a futuristic robot action adventure film called CHROME.

what utter crap (pardon my french ) I could probably find pictures of my FM design and say "Look Pendragon has copied the same angle and direction from me" some of the similarities Hines is claiming are laughable, I could probably pick up a Batman comic from the 1970s and say "Hines has copied the expressions from the peoples faces for his film"
I hope he's laughed out of court, The guys an idiot, who's desperately trying anything to screw a bit more money out of his bastardized film version of the book I love.

I think most people who know just how bad Tim Hines' film is will realize this is just a desperate attempt to get attention/publicity for his abysmal failure of a movie.

However, if there is any doubt, McTodd over on the War of the Worlds Online forum has posted a thorough analysis of the comparison. He points out, for example, that one of the Dark Horse comic panels which Hines claims imitates his movie is actually a repeat of a panel from an earlier Dark Horse publication, _Scarlet Traces_, which was published in 2001. So if there was any copying done in that instance, it was Hines who copied Dark Horse!

I read this the other day and just couldn't be bothered posting about it. The man has obviously become ill from the pressures of making a duff film.
Can't he see that even if he were right he won't win?

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